University of Ottawa

Published purpose

An Animal Model to Prevent Shoulder Injuries in Microgravity Shoulder's muscles and tendons combine their activities to provide mobility and stability when we move our arms. On Earth, shoulder muscles must counteract gravity to maintain in position the shoulder. In space, only muscle forces act and astronauts develop shoulder overuse injuries. Our ability to detect early signs of shoulder overuse is limited. As such, soft tissue tears develop unnoticed until they cause pain and serious functional deficits. We propose to study the shoulders of mudskippers, an amphibious fish, as a natural model that mirrors the dramatic changes in motions, gravitational forces experienced by astronauts' shoulders